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The Great Ping Pong Scam
The Great Ping Pong Scam is the 11th episode of Victorious. It was originally scheduled to air on September 24th, 2010, but was rescheduled to October 1st, 2010. It features the song Tell Me that You Love Me, performed by Tori (Victoria Justice) and André (Leon Thomas lll). With only 2.4 million views, this is the second lowest documented audience of an episode in the series, the first being The Hambone King, which had 2.391 million views. Plot Tori asks Robbie, André, and Cat to hang out after school, but they say that they can't because they have ping pong practice. Tori doesn't believe them and insists on joining the team. They tell her she has to talk to Jade, the team captain, who then denies Tori admittance to the team. Lane tries to straighten things out, and after Tori shows them the rules for joining sports teams from TheSlap, she gets her chance to try out. She plays and beats everyone including Rex, but Jade still tells her that she can't join. Tori later pulls Sinjin into the janitor's closet and makes him agree to construct her something to hide in so she can spy on her friends. He makes her a hollowed out, fake soda machine. She then spies on the others, who appear to be playing Twister instead of practicing. Tori is discovered when Beck attempts to buy a soda from the machine that she is hiding in, but when no beverage comes out he and the others topple the machine over. Tori then gets busted. Tori demands an explanation, so André and the others explain: Two years ago, Jade, Cat, Beck, André, and Robbie discovered a ping pong table in the lounge. Robbie suggested to form a team, but Jade struck him on the head, shooting his idea down. Days after, Cat mentions that her parents took her to a fantastic restaurant (most likely Maestro's). The gang wishes to go there, but it's way too expensive. Jade thinks of a scheme to make a fake ping pong team, take the $1500 the school gives its sports teams, and use it to go have the dinner they want. They however, need a staff member as an adviser, so the approach Sikowitz. He however, thinks the plan is too devious, but mentions that the superintendent might fire Principal Eikner if the school doesn't win a big championship trophy for the school. So, their new plan is to go to dinner using part of the $1500 the school will give them, and then use the rest to buy a trophy for the school and to save the principal's job. Tori is allowed to join the team in exchange for her silence, and joins them as they prepare for the "the big championship", which is really just dinner at Maestro's. Everyone dresses nicely except for Tori, who is stuck in her uniform. Robbie gets his first taste of caviar, and likes it so much he orders a big soup bowl of it. The bill for the dinner finally comes to Sikowitz, and the total costs $1300, including $600 for Robbie's caviar. The group cannot afford the bill because of Robbie's caviar, and Sikowitz sneaks away from the table and out the door. Tori overhears the owner of the restaurant talking to an employee about how customers are complaining about the lack of live music. Tori then offers to sing as payment for the dinner and borrows Jade's dress to perform in, much to Jade's chagrin. Tori and André then perform "Tell Me that You Love Me". Trivia *Absent: Daniella Monet as Trina Vega *Sikowitz's van is a 1973 Ford Econoline. *This is the first episode to focus on 'secrets' in the gang. *While Tori hides in a fake soda machine to spy on the rest of the group, the game they are playing is a parody of Twister. *During the end credits, Cat talks about how her father has told her to speak less. This is a reference to in Tori the Zombie, when Trina tells her she should talk less, and she replies, "That's what my dad always says!" *The two arcade games in the rec room, Rock Demon and Fast and Fabulous, are parodies of Guitar Hero and The Fast and The Furious, respectively. *It is shown during the flashback that Cat, Jade, Beck, André, and Robbie have been friends for at least two years (or at the very least, hanging out with each other). *This is the first time Sikowitz is seen outside of Improv class. *At the beginning of Tori and André's song, Sikowitz had snuck away from the table, but once the financial crisis had been sorted out, he returns. *In this episode, Robbie discovers a love of caviar. *Jade's ring that she has on while she is imitating Tori's "phone in face" bit can also been seen in the Slap video "Sinjin's Sock Puppets: Jade." *When Tori, Jade, and Lane are arguing, you can see an iCarly sticker on the locker behind Lane. *From the performance of the group playing against Tori, the players from least to greatest appear to be: **Cat (she runs away from the ball in fear). **Beck (plays against Tori first, Tori expends no effort in the round). **André (Tori looks somewhat engaged while playing him but doesn't seem to be trying very much, André is surprised when she beats him). **Robbie/Rex (Tori wins easily against Robbie, only slowing because of his odd choice of taking off his shirt, and Robbie seems even better of a player through Rex. Despite this, he is not actual competition for Tori). **Jade (presumably best, though never seen playing. It's possible one of the reasons she's captain is because she's such a good player although it is more likely that she is charge given that she came up with the idea and the others' fear of her and she is likely just as terrible as the other four). *It is hinted that Sikowitz and the waiter like each other, because when she hands him the check, she strokes her hand across his arm and back, and Sikowitz says "Thank you." in a flirtatious way. **When André witnesses this, it brings an interested grin to his face. *The shoes Jade - and later, Tori - are wearing at the restaurant can also be seen in Freak the Freak Out when Jade sings at Karaoke Dokie. *The gang commits a white-collar crime (fraud), and could face up to ten years in prison, (potentially more because they did it more then once) if ever arrested for it. **Tori would be exempt from the full sentence given that she paid for her meal with her performance but would still face legal trouble, though very likely no actual jail time, for concealing knowledge about the scheme. *The pink tank top Cat wears during the flashback of her explaining Maestro's was the same one Carly Shay (from Dan's other show iCarly) has worn before (iOwe You). *Rex mentioned his hot chick volleyball squad again in Freak The Freak Out while he is interacting with his Northridge girls. *Robbie trusts Beck enough to take control over Rex while it's his turn to play ping pong. Beck covers Rex's eyes when Robbie gets hit in the groin with the ball. *'Ending Tagline:' "Here comes that feeling." - Sinjin Goofs *In the beginning, when Tori sticks gum on Rex's face, the gum she takes out of her mouth is white, but the gum she puts on Rex's face is deep pink. *When Sinjin and Tori are in The Janitor's Closet she uses a lock that turns but schools are required to use doors with key locks on both sides. Hollywood Arts isn't considered a 'normal' school though. *When Tori tells Sinjin to do a plan while they were in the Janitor's Closet, it shows Sinjin with his glasses on the whole time but when Sinjin complains to Tori that she sprayed kitchen cleaner his glasses are gone. *In the scene where Robbie is hit in the groin by a ping pong ball and then hits his face on the table, in the wide shot when he falls to the ground, we can see Beck in the background with his hand covering Rex's face. But in the next shot, they show Beck close up physically covering Rex's face, even though his eyes were already covered in the previous shot. *During the flashback, when Sikowitz was saying how Principal Eikner might get fired, Tori's "Make it Shine" locker is visible in the background despite her attending Sherwood at the time. *Likewise, the flashback shows Jade as she is in every other episode, rather than her earlier look in the Pilot. *At the restaurant, when Tori yells "Yes I'm wearing a Ping Pong Uniform!" the next shot has the two ladies run away. In the bottom of that shot. Beck whispers something to Jade therefore, gets cheek to cheek to her. But in the next shot with André. Beck is looking at his food as if he never spoke to her. He could not have resumed eating that quickly after he had finished talking. *The gang somehow first notices that Tori is still wearing her ping pong uniform when they're halfway through dinner. *In most restaurants, the workers don't immediately report to the police about the customers that don't pay. Instead, they are asked to wash dishes. (This was fixed with one of Robbie's posts on TheSlap; he couldn't pay for his bill and had to work in the kitchen) *When the camera shows shots of the audience during Tori's and Andre's performance, a few of the shots show Tori's and André's friends enjoying the performance. However, Sikowitz is in one of those shots with the teenagers before he returns to the restaurant after running away out of fear. *While Robbie is eating his bowl of caviar, Tori is giving Cat some food. You can clearly see that her hands are above Cat's plate. In the next shot, Tori is sitting straight and her hands are nowhere near Cat's plate. *Robbie shouldn't eat caviar as it isn't kosher, i.e. allowed for Jewish. However, since Robbie was eating caviar for the first time, he obviously doesn't know anything about it. *It would be illegal to fire Eikner based on a lack of sports trophies as such things fall outside the purview of a principal's duties (if anything, the head of the athletic department would have been fired). Either Sikowitz misunderstood the situation (or possibly imagined the whole scenario due to his coconut juice) or the superintendent was making an empty threat. *Tori is noticeably thinner than Jade yet both girls manage to perfectly fit in the other's clothing. *As the gang does not actually attend the ping pong tournaments for the schools in Los Angeles, the scam should have been found out in its first year, long before the "championship" dinner, when they failed to present themselves to any event as someone would have called the school to find out why they didn't show up. Likewise, most inter-school sporting events are attended by the parents of the players or even fellow students for support. Quotes Rex: Or you could join my team. I call it Rex's all hot chick volleyball squad! Tori: the gum on Rex's face Robbie: (angry) Tori! Rex: Just get it off my nose! Snatch it off! Robbie: to get the gum off, but it stretches between his fingers and Rex's nose, to Andre and Cat's disgust Rex: Aw man, its the stretchy kind! Sinjin: Here comes that feeling. Tori: I heard that. Cat: What's wrong? Robbie: I think I pulled a muscle. Jade: You can't pull what you don't have. Rex: to Tori Why don't we just drive her out to the desert and drop her off? Robbie: Rex! Rex: She knows too much! André, and Beck rock the fake soda machine, causing it to fall, and Tori to scream André: Did that machine just scream like a teenage girl? Tori: out of the fake machine Alright, who put me in the soda machine?! Sikowitz: And I'm very proud to announce the newest member of the Hollywood Arts Ping Pong team: Tori, the paddlepuss, Vega! Tori: Read the phone, Jade. Read the phone!... later Jade: Read the phone, Tori. Read the pho-o-one!... Tori: Give me your dress. Jade: What? Tori: Give me your dress! Jade: for a beat This dress? Tori: Hey guys! Cat: Hey Tori! Robbie: How's it going? Andre: Sup! Tori: After school I was thinking we could all hang out at the grove. You wanna wanna? Cat, and Robbie hesitate Cat: We really can't. Tori: How come? Robbie: We have ping pong practice. Andre: Mhm. Cat: Uhuh. Tori: denial Shut up. Andre: It's true. Robbie: Yeah we're all on the ping pong team. Cat: Me, Andre, Robbie, Beck and Jade. Tori: There's no ping pong team at Hollywood arts. Robbie: Um, listen Tori, your still kind of new here, so I just don't think you under...Tori's mouth What kind of gum are you chewing? Tori: I don't know Sinjin made it. Robbie: Rex Smell her mouth. Rex: Sure. Tori's mouth Hmm, smells like that trip we took to Acapulco last year! Robbie: Yes! Cat: Oooo you have Mexican flavored gum? Tori: Mexican is not a flavor! Sinjin: up to her face Thank you. away Tori: Look if you guys don't want to hang out with me than just say so. Why make up a lie that your all on some fake ping pong team? Cat: Hey Tori! Robbie: How's it going? Andre: Sup! Tori: Okay so now your going to pretend we're not having the conversation we're having? Cat: About what? Tori: Jade? Jade? her shoulder, to her annoyance Ja-a-ade? I'm not going away, and you can't just say no. Jade: no in 7 different voices Tori: Alright, well you can... Jade: groans My life is slipping away! Tori: the ladies quietly talking about her outfit Yes! I'm wearing a ping pong uniform! Robbie: Wait, ma'am. Waitress: Yes? Robbie: What is this awesome dip? Waitress: That's caviar. Robbie: It's fantastic. Uh, can I get a big bowl of it? Waitress: A big bowl? Robbie: Like a bowl for soup but filled with this caviar stuff. Waitress: Sure, I'll bring that right to your table. Robbie: his hand on her shoulder You're very kind. Waitress: away quickly Sikowitz: Wait, wait, I see the problem, we were mistakenly charged for $600 for caviar. Excuse me, sir? Waiter: Hi, is anything wrong? Sikowitz: Yes, We were mistakenly charged for $600 worth of caviar. Waitress: Oh, that's not a mistake. That awkward young man ordered a large bowl of caviar. stares at Robbie Robbie: Rex Man! What were you thinking?! Rex: Hey, I didn't order any caviar! Owner: Sikowitz How's your drink sir? Sikowitz: Very moist. Cat: Are you sure? Tori: Yes, they can't grow lobster flavored potatoes. time passes Andre: the cake Oh, so good! But I'm so full! Beck: Come on, man up. Okay, here we go. Andre the cake, and helps him chew Aw yeah, there we go. That's nice, isn't it? Andre: Thank you! Beck: Breathe through it. Andre: '''You're a good friend. '''Cat: So like, what if a farmer planted a lobster and a potato in the same hole? looks annoyed Maybe it would grow a lobtato? Tori: Yes Cat, a lobtato would grow; I'll tell the farmers. Cat: Giggles Sikowitz: at the bill, and spits out his food in shock What the hairballs?! Jade: What? Sikowitz: It's $1300! gang react in shock Cat: It's never been over 700! Jade: Way to go Tori! Tori: I ordered the same thing you did! Beck: You said you reminded everyone to bring nice clothes. Tori: You didn't remind me! Jade: Whoops. Songs *'Tell Me that You Love Me' by Tori Vega and André Harris Reception Reception for this episode was very mixed. The end song was almost universally praised but many found the plot to be nonsensical and pointless. Gallery 111 111 111 11 Category:Guest Stars Category:Episodes without Trina